An Imperfect Heart

by Amie Knight

  Tears leaked out the sides of my eyes. What if they didn’t make it in time? What would we do? Terror tore at my insides. I couldn’t have my baby here. Anthony was right. We needed the hospital. We needed medical professionals and not just my Doc.

  “I’m scared, Doc.”

  He sat down at my head and pulled me up under my arms until I was kneeled over his lap and face-to-face with him, straddling his thighs.

  “I know, baby, but everything is going to be okay. I promise.” But I saw the hint of fear in his eyes. Just the smidge of distress he tried to hide from me. But I knew his face almost just as well as my own.

  Another contraction took hold, and I widened my legs over his lap and panted into his chest, curling my body around the front of his. “Fuck, I have to push. I have to,” I panted.

  “Then do it. Push,” he said calmly.

  I wanted to wait until the ambulance came. I wanted to give my baby girl the best fighting chance and the more medical personnel here, the better. I shook my head, my hair now soaked with sweat. “I can’t. I’m too scared.”

  He grabbed my chin, bringing my eyes to his. “Someone once told me that if you aren’t scared, you aren’t dreaming big enough.”

  Tears poured down my cheeks as my lips trembled wildly. My sweet man. He didn’t know. Those were the words of a young, naive girl. A silly fool. It was beautiful that he remembered and awful, too, because this wasn’t a dream.

  “This isn’t a dream, Doc,” I cried. “This is a nightmare.” My baby was sick and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. And she was about to be born in a closet. She could die here. All of this and maybe we’d never even stood a chance. Maybe fate hadn’t been on our side after all.

  His grip was firm on my chin, his eyes fierce, his face that of a fighter, a warrior. “No, Kelly. Not your dream. My dream. You and that baby. You’re my dream.”

  I wondered how big of a dream it was. “How scared are you?” I whispered.

  “Terrified,” he answered sharply.

  More tears squeezed from my eyes. “That’s an awfully big dream, Doc.”

  His face was savage. I’d never forget how it looked in that moment, so forceful and wildly beautiful. So scared and so fearsome. “Then you better not let me down.”

  Never, I conceded. I’d never let him down. I placed my forehead to his. “I love you.”

  His eyes closed slowly, like he was savoring the words, tucking them somewhere safe deep in his heart, before he opened them. “I love you, too. Team Hope,” he whispered.

  “Team Hope,” I said back.

  “Now push.”

  And I did. And I kept pushing, until I felt a burning that made small tears leak out the sides of my eyes, but I didn’t stop until I felt Doc’s big hands under me, his voice telling me to wait.

  “Okay, one more.” He kissed my forehead. Burning, fire, and a long scream accompanied by a big push and all of a sudden I felt strangely empty.

  “There she is!” Doc cried out. He pulled her up and between us and stuck his finger into her mouth, making sure nothing was there. I looked down shocked at how small she was between us, especially in Doc’s big hands.

  Why wasn’t she crying? Why wasn’t she moving?

  “What’s wrong with her, Doc? Why isn’t she crying?” Panic climbed up my throat.

  She was strangely quiet as Doc grabbed a shoe lace from one of the shoes in the closet. I watched him tie it around the umbilical cord, feeling like every second was an hour, scared out of my mind. I was tired, but so frightened. Why wasn’t she crying? He pulled a dress shirt off a hanger in the closet and wrapped it around her, rubbing her back vigorously while he held her against his chest until I heard the sweetest sound I’d ever heard in my life. My baby girl’s loud cry.

  She was pink and mad as hell as far as I could tell, and he put her in my arms and pulled me close so he was holding both of us.

  “She looks like you. She’s beautiful.” He had tears in his eyes. “She looks good. She’s a nice color.” His pointer and middle finger covered her heart for a few seconds. “She’s a fighter. Like her momma.”

  His face held an enormous amount of pride I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

  I held her to me. She did look like me. Her hair was dark and she was so tiny. She screamed and cried, and I hiccupped a laugh. “She’s perfect,” I breathed.

  The whirr of an ambulance sounded in the distance, and I was relieved. And sad. I wanted to stay in the closet forever, me and my baby and Doc. They’d take her from me soon.

  Doc kissed me all over my face a thousand times with the baby held between us like the precious gift she was. I didn’t know how we’d ever let her go although in mere minutes we’d have to.

  Doc told me time and time again in low whispered words how amazing I was, how proud he was of me. How awed he was by me, until finally the paramedics banged on the door and he went to let them in.

  Anthony cut her umbilical cord, and they took her from us and loaded us all into an ambulance while Doc shouted orders at them I didn’t understand. But I didn’t need to. I trusted him implicitly. She was as much his as she was mine, and I knew he’d never let her down.

  Waiting is awful on a regular day. Waiting for news on a baby that means more than the world to you is a special kind of hell.

  All of the favors I’d called in were coming to fruition and yet I still felt so incredibly helpless. The ambulance ride had been too quick. They’d taken her from us too fast, whisking her to surgery, which had always been the plan, but it felt so wrong. She should be with us, not with strangers. Not with people she didn’t know. People who didn’t love her like we did.

  “What’s her name?” They’d asked when we finally got Kelly settled into a hospital room and looked over.

  We’d looked at each other and laughed until tears sprang to our eyes. We’d never even thought about names. Our thoughts had been too full of other problems, other worries. So we’d cried tears of laughter at our thoughtlessness. Those tears wouldn’t stop and then they’d changed to a different kind of tears. The terrified kind. We cried together and held each other, both so damn frightened we didn’t know what else to do.

  “Hope,” Kelly had said when we’d finally quieted. “Abigail Hope, but we’ll call her Hope.” Her tear-filled eyes looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. How could I argue with what seemed so very perfect?

  Now we waited. And I wasn’t used to it. Kelly lay quietly in the bed next to the chair I sat in. They called the room with updates almost every fifteen minutes.

  “She’s in the OR.”

  “We’ve intubated her.”

  “The first incision has occurred.”

  And we waited, each time the phone rang, making us practically jump out of our skin. Every phone call seemed too damn important and pivotal and it was. I knew how fast it could all go wrong. How quickly we could lose her. I wasn’t used to it. I knew Kelly wasn’t either, but I really wasn’t.

  It was different being on this side of things. I was so helpless, so very out of control. I wanted to march down there and demand to be let in. Demand to see that they were doing the very best for Hope, but I’d already been warned away. There couldn’t be any emotional ties in that operating room and what I felt for Hope was beyond emotional ties. She was mine. It was in my bones, my love for her. I loved her like she was my own, and if I had anything to do with it, she would be.

  So, I stalked around Kelly’s hospital room feeling like a goddamn failure because I couldn’t oversee the surgery. Because I couldn’t make this better for Kelly. I paced. I went from anger to tears. I ran my hands through my hair and barked orders at the nurses like a complete asshole. I decided I was really bad at being on this end of things. And it was only going to get harder.

  This was Hope’s first surgery and it wasn’t even one that was going to help her. It was only a small fix to give her heart time to grow bigger so we could do this again and then again until her heart
was fixed. We had a long road ahead of us and it was a scary one. There was no guarantee she would pull through. I saw it all the time. Babies were so fragile, so susceptible to infection. A million things could go wrong and I went down a bad path that day, one I shouldn’t have traveled, obsessing over every one of them.

  That’s how I missed it. I was being too selfish. Too caught up in my own grief that I didn’t notice how oddly solemn Kelly was. How strangely quiet and distant she’d become over the hours.

  Then she voiced it. I was pacing the room, pulling at the roots of my hair when I heard her. I almost missed it she’d said it so quietly.

  “It was something I did.”

  I paused, finally really seeing her for the first time since we’d arrived at the hospital and they’d taken Hope from us.

  She looked tired but still so beautiful, and already her stomach was smaller where she’d carried Hope. It made me sad. Hope had been so very safe in there.

  Kelly had been the kind of brave today I’d only seen in movies or read about in books. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I already knew she was the type of woman who would walk through fire for her child. She’d shown me that by showing up at my office months ago.

  I walked to the foot of her bed and stared down at her. “What did you say?”

  She wasn’t looking at me either and I realized all day she’d been lost in her head, too. She still was. Immediately, I felt sick. I hadn’t been there for her.

  “It was me. It’s my fault,” she said to the wall behind me. I didn’t like the look in her eyes. It was too vacant, too gone. She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  Walking around to the side of the bed, I asked, “What’s your fault?”

  I ran my hand over her forehead and her eyes finally met mine. “It had to have been something I did, right? Or something I didn’t do?” She stuttered the sentence and it came out stilted and cluttered, the words seeming to trip over one another.

  My eyes burned at the emotion behind those words. I knew what she was asking me, but I hoped against hope I was wrong.

  “That’s why she’s sick.” Tears poured down her face. “It was me. I didn’t eat enough vegetables or maybe I had a drink before I knew I was pregnant. I did this to her, right?” She sobbed at me, her voice becoming louder and heavier with remorse every sentence.

  I climbed into bed next to her, shoes and all, and lay on top of the covers. I was way too big to fit, but we would just have to make do. We needed each other right now. We needed to be as close to each other as possible because clearly apart we were a damn mess.

  That was us. Together we were unstoppable. Apart, we were hopeless.

  Pulling her head onto my chest, I said, “No, baby. We don’t know why these things happen, but this is not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. It just happens sometimes and it fucking sucks, but you are not allowed to blame yourself. Do you understand me?”

  I breathed in the scent of her hair while she wrapped her arms tight around my middle. She didn’t answer me, but she sobbed into my T-shirt and her cries broke me because if that baby didn’t make it, she wouldn’t make it. Maybe I wouldn’t either. It would break us all.

  I knew firsthand how losing someone you love could rip a family apart. How grief could inevitably crush a family’s soul beyond repair if you let it.

  I vowed from that moment on, I wouldn’t get lost in my head anymore. I’d be there for her. I’d be strong despite how weak I felt.

  I held her to me and petted her in the way I knew she loved while more phone calls came in with news of Hope’s surgery. My mother and Kelly’s arrived and we all waited together, cuddled up on that bed; every one of us wrapped around each other, holding one another together, making sure all of our pieces stayed intact.

  It was one of the hardest days of my life. The waiting. It does a weird thing to a person. We prayed and begged to a God we hadn’t talked to in a very long time. We made promises. We bargained. We pleaded.

  In the end, God came through that day.

  Hope and faith won, and our pleas were answered.

  Hours later I wheeled Kelly down to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, where there lay our Hope almost completely unrecognizable. Kelly cried again as she held Hope’s tiny hand.

  And me. I just stared at Hope. I couldn’t quite believe it, how I’d seen hundreds of babies like that. The tubes that seemingly came from everywhere, the gauze covering the long incision on their chest. The intubation tube that almost seemed as big as she was. My heart hadn’t ached for those babies like they did for my Hope. My eyes hadn’t burned with emotion for them.

  Tears poured from Kelly’s eyes endlessly as she looked her baby over. I wanted to soothe her. To make it better, but there wasn’t a better in this situation. It just was. And we just had to make do. The nurse on duty worried for Kelly and eventually covered Hope with a small blanket up to her chin, rubbing Kelly on the back, telling her it was sometimes too hard to see and that she should take a break.

  I hated this feeling, the sadness. The worry, I loathed it. Being on this side of things was excruciating. And the weeks to come would try us beyond anything we could even imagine. They would test our faith. They would push our limits. They would make us question everything every second of the day. But we’d lean on each other. We’d cry together with worry. We’d smile at every small accomplishment. And we’d get through it all.

  Together.

  Hours turned into days, and days turned into weeks. I floated along through them all on autopilot. Doing what I felt I had to just to get by. Most days counting every hour a blessing. Most nights hardly sleeping from the worry. Hope’s first surgery was just a quick fix. Just enough to make the half of her heart that wasn’t working get by for the time being. We spent a week in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit before we were transferred to a step down unit. There, I spent weeks learning how to care for my sick baby. Checking her oxygen. Her temperature. Learning to feed her through a tube since she wasn’t able to actually eat yet. Anthony spent the nights and evenings with us when he could. He took time off to be with us as much as his schedule allowed, but I knew how important his kids were to him, so I sent him back to work when I felt capable. He spent his days saving everyone else’s babies and spent his nights trying to save ours. When finally a month later they allowed us to go home, I should have felt ecstatic. Instead, I was scared as hell.

  Here, the doctor and nurses were only steps away. At home, Hope would solely depend on me during the day while Anthony was at work. At least I would have him and his medical expertise at night, I told myself.

  At home I thought maybe we would rest better and sometimes we did on those days when the moms would come by and help so we could actually take a nap in peace. A nap where I wasn’t worried something would happen to Hope while I was away from her. It was true, there was so no rest for the weary. I lay in bed at night exhausted but too scared to sleep. Instead, I’d get up and check on Hope. Was she still breathing? Was her temperature too high? We were exhausted and barely surviving and it seemed like there was no end in sight. It felt like our lives were just going to be a series of doctors’ appointments and tube feedings, and oxygen checks and recording it all in a book with times. Even diaper changes were on record. Our lives were in a binder. Every damn bit of them. But still, I’d do it, every day for the rest of my life if it meant more days with Hope.

  But every day, it got easier to be this way—to live this life. It became routine, the new normal, and Anthony and I settled into a daily schedule. We lived more like roommates than lovers. Probably because we hadn’t really been lovers in ten years. And, God, I may have had a sick baby that I would gladly devote every moment of my time to, but I wanted to feel normal. Like a woman. I wanted to remember how my Doc loved me, lusted for me.

  I’d look at the refrigerator in the kitchen and think of the day he’d pushed me up against it and made come against him. I wanted that. I wanted him.

  I wanted it all. I wanted
motherhood. And I wanted Doc, too. And not just the daddy version of him. Don’t get me wrong. I loved seeing him with Hope. He was perfect with her. Whenever I was panicked over something, he took over, knowing exactly what to do. And at night when he held her against his big bare chest, God, I’d ache for him in ways he didn’t even realize. Because my man was sexy. And with my small baby girl propped against his large chest I’d feel my ovaries ache. He was attentive and caring and loving, but for some reason he never tried to take our relationship any further than nights curled around each other in bed. Comforting, sweet, much needed nights, but I still wanted more. Maybe I was selfish, but why couldn’t I have it all? I’d wait for him to slide his hand up my thigh or maybe under my shirt, but it never happened.

  Six weeks went by. I thought maybe he was waiting for the all clear from the doctor but after eight weeks of waiting for him to finally put the moves on me, I was done. I needed to do something about this shit. I was over it.

  So that night when I knew Doc was coming home from work, I changed into my favorite pair of black workout booty shorts. I also made sure to put on a form-fitting tank. I was pretty sure I was wearing the equivalent of mom lingerie. I looked like I was headed to yoga. Hopefully I was headed to bed. I brushed my hair, which I admit some days I just didn’t really get around to. I even put on some lip gloss and checked myself over in the mirror.

  I thought I looked pretty damn good for a chick who was eight weeks postpartum. My body was mostly back, minus the stretch marks and a few inches on the love handles. God, I hoped they got some love tonight.

  Doc came in from work like he did every evening and headed straight for the dining room where we had a makeshift hospital room set up for Hope. Her hospital scale, hospital grade crib, took up the small space now, the dining room table long since in storage.

  He walked right past me and my sexy shorts. I couldn’t believe it. I looked damn good.

  He picked Hope up and grinned down at her. “Hey, Hope, it’s me. Your Doc, I’m home. How’s my girl this evening?”